A guy was getting searched Rock Ferry train station today buy police Mersey travel staff, then on another train coming into the station a different bunch of Mersey travel staff and police came of that train today
I was at B'head Park station a while ago when they were doing this. They had a portable metal detector and were putting any lads that looked like they might be carrying a weapon through it, then searching for drugs. Anyone without a ticket was handed over to BTP and the Merseyrail revenue protection staff.
I got chatting to one of the BTP coppers and they'd caught over 200 people that day. I watched for about 20 min and unsuprisingly most of the people found with weapons and drugs were young males. However, a large proportion (maybe three quarters) of fare-dodgers were well-dressed people, commuters perhaps, who didn't exactly look hard-up. Most of those were female.
They probably chose B'head Park because of the island platform, meaning one crew could process people on trains going in both directions.